


grow as we go

by nuricurry



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: F/M, Post KHIII, Post-Canon, Terraqua Fanzine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 11:26:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22849387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nuricurry/pseuds/nuricurry
Summary: He always thought he'd be the one who would say he was leaving.
Relationships: Aqua/Terra (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29
Collections: I'm With You - A Terraqua Fanzine





	grow as we go

**Author's Note:**

> This is my contribution to the Terraqua "I'm With You" Fanzine! I would like to thank all the mods for allowing me the opportunity to participate, as well as express my love and gratitude to the countless writers and artists who also participated in this wonderful celebration of Terra and Aqua. Consider picking up a copy if you haven't already!

It feels as if it happens suddenly. 

Maybe it feels that way because Terra hadn’t noticed the little signs that would crop up. He missed the hints, the clues, the indicators that would have prepared him for what happened. 

“I think that it’s best that I leave.”

It’s not him that says that. When he thinks of who is more likely to say that they need to go, he naturally imagines himself. Even before Xehanort, even before the darkness, before being a prisoner in his own body, Terra had thought about leaving. It wasn’t that he wasn’t happy in the Land of Departure, but rather that he felt so certain that there was more he could see, more he could do, in the worlds beyond. There was an entire sky’s worth of stars to be explored, each one the light of another world so different from the one he had known. He used to dream about seeing them all, of jumping between each and every one. 

Now, however, he feels the complete opposite. After everything settled, after things were put back into place-- or, at least as much as they could-- the last thing he wants is to go anywhere. If he could chain himself to the ground he would, if any of the people he’s met throughout the years want to see him, he’d happily invite them to visit, so long as he didn’t have to leave. 

Aqua used to be the same way. That was why when she pulled him aside one evening after Ven ran off to put off doing his share of the dishes and told him that she wanted to leave, Terra couldn’t believe it. 

“What are you talking about, Aqua?” he felt himself staring at her, feeling speechless but still able to somehow find words to say to her, “Why would you think that? This is home.” _Your home. My home. Ours._ Those words actually got caught somewhere behind his teeth, and he couldn’t quite force them out. 

Aqua’s eyes wavered. He had learned to read so much from Aqua’s eyes, mostly out of necessity. She so rarely shared anything she was thinking on her face. They had grown up together, and he knew her tics, knew her habits, and the worst of them was her insistence on keeping things buried deep inside. Part of being a Master was control, he knew that, that was why he wasn’t one, but he also knew Aqua didn’t necessarily always control things. Sometimes, she just buried them, she just pushed them down and put them aside, either to be ignored or be dealt with later. Except that ‘later’ was just an illusion, a point of time that would never exist because Aqua would never allow it to exist. For her, it was just easier to never address the problem at all, and tell herself that it wasn’t a problem-- the first step in a cycle that was too hard to break. 

He saw Aqua’s hesitation, and so he encouraged it, only so that he could get an explanation. “Why do you want to leave Aqua?”

“It’s not that I want to go,” she corrected him, her eyes turning away, looking down to the floor, “It’s that…” Her voice stopped, and as he felt that hesitation build within her again, he reached out, touching a few tentative fingers to her shoulder. Perhaps she took some comfort from that contact, because after a moment, Aqua sucked in a deep breath and spoke again. “I don’t know if I belong here anymore, Terra.” 

That was when all the pieces seemed to fall into place, when the clues and hints he had missed before come to him in a rush. Terra thought back, back to the days and weeks and months since they had returned home. He remembered Aqua pacing through the halls as if in a daze, somehow lost in the place she had grown up in. He remembered the late nights where he’d hear Aqua’s door open and close, and then her footsteps in the hall as she slipped out to spend time in the training grounds. He remembered the frequent trips she had been taking lately, the ‘missions’ she said she had, the tasks she claimed needed to be done, all off-world, all by herself, all lasting longer and longer each time. He hadn’t noticed until then, because it had been so subtle. Or, when it wasn’t subtle, he was distracted, because he was still adjusting himself. He was still getting used to having his own body again, to having only his own thoughts in his head instead of someone else’s, and maybe he could be excused from not picking up on it sooner. 

Looking at Aqua, seeing how her eyes were still lowered to the floor, her shoulders stiff, her eyebrows drawn together, Terra felt as if he was seeing a reflection of himself. Or, at least a reflection of what he felt all too often lately. He saw the doubt, the awkwardness, the feeling of not belonging despite the fact that there seemed to be no other place to go. He understood what she felt.

But that did not mean that he agreed with it. 

“Of course you belong here,” he argued and meant it. When he thought of Aqua, he thought of her here, in the Land of Departure. He thought of the sound of her sure, confident footsteps echoing through the corridors. He thought of seeing her smile while the sun was setting behind her, casting her silhouette in a soft golden glow. When he thought of what the Land of Departure was, what it meant, when he thought of home, Aqua was always there in some capacity. “I can’t see you anywhere else,” he confessed to her. 

Aqua’s eyes, bright blue, looked up to meet his. Finally, she was looking at him, and for a moment, that was all they did. They just stared at one another, as silence fell between them. 

It was Aqua who ended up breaking it. “I’ve changed, Terra,” her voice was soft, and colored with pain. Hearing her hurt in turn hurt Terra, and he winced but managed to avoid faltering. 

“So have I. Way more than you have.”

“You changed back--” Aqua protested, but he cut her off. Not rudely, not harshly, but he couldn’t let her continue with that thought.

“No, I didn’t. I’m me again,” he granted her that, “But I’m not...the same as I was before. I’m different. I’ve changed too.” Aqua seemed to struggle with that; he could see how she was thinking of how to argue with him, to reassure him that he wasn’t different, that he wasn’t anything like how he was when he wasn’t himself. But that wasn’t what he was trying to say, and he decided to clarify that for her. “Change isn’t bad, Aqua. We all change. We all grow and learn, and we become different. Change can be a good thing.” 

Her eyes fell again, and he heard her let out a soft snort. “What if my changes weren’t all good?” 

It was sometimes easy to forget that Terra wasn’t the only one who had lived in the dark. Aqua, just like she hid her feelings, hid how the Darkness had effected her, though he knew it did. He saw the night left on in Aqua’s room at all hours of the night when walking past her door. He heard how her breath would catch when there was a sudden noise, how she would tighten her grip as if to summon her keyblade. Like her leaving, those hints had been subtle, and it wasn’t until Terra thought it all over together that the pieces fell into place. 

They were both quiet again for a long moment. It was hard to find words to say, especially when Terra worried about making sure they were the right ones. But, eventually, he couldn’t bear the silence anymore and he reached out, placing both hands on Aqua’s shoulders. 

“They don’t have to be. You don’t have to be the same, to belong here. You don’t have to be all good.” He knew that perhaps better than anyone. But, that was a lesson he hadn’t learned on his own. “You taught me that,” he told her, and with a jerk, Aqua lifted her head, and met his eyes again. 

“Terra…”

“We can change together,” he offered her, along with a small, gentle smile.

He always believed that it was subtle things that passed him by and caught him by surprise. He thought that if someone was direct, upfront, he’d always know what to expect, or at least be prepared for it. That turned out to be incorrect, because when Aqua stepped forward, closer to him, putting her arms around his waist and resting her head on his shoulder, he never saw it coming, and stood there frozen in shock. After a moment, however, the surprise faded, and in its place grew warmth. It took him a beat, but he returned Aqua’s embrace, pulling her tight against him, tilting his head to rest his head against the crown of hers. 

“That’s a promise,” Aqua whispered, and Terra murmured his agreement back.


End file.
